Last-ditch bid to save Derbyshire village's GP surgery

Pilsley surgery is set to close despite hundreds of residents signing a petition objecting to the plans.

The main reason for the closure of the Willow Close surgery, run by Staffa Health, is believed to be a shortage of GPs.

Staffa Health says that the firm would struggle to continue to operate over four sites in the area and one, Pilsley, should be closed to sustain the remaining surgeries – in Tibshelf, Holmewood and Stonebroom.

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Pilsley pensioners Sheila Baldwin, 70, and Wendy Hardwick, 68, organised the petition and knocked on almost all of the homes in the village over three weeks in a bid to build support.

Now they are preparing for a meeting of the Primary Care Clinical Commissioning Committee as it makes a decision on the surgery closure on Wednesday, February 26, at 11.30am at the Resource Centre, Whiteleas Avenue, North Wingfield.

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Sheila said: “This is going to affect pensioners, the disabled and young mums who don’t have their own transport.

“Buses only run once an hour to Tibshelf and the last one is at 5.15pm. So you have no chance if you have an appointment at 5pm. It would cost £20 there and back in a taxi.

“We have tried hard to raise awareness in the village but we still feel a lot of people don’t know what is going on.

“There was a questionnaire about the proposals but it was only one per household so many people couldn’t comment.”

Bolsover MP Mark Fletcher recently took up the issue in Parliament and said residents in Pilsley were ‘unanimously’ against the closure.

He said: “Do we really want our elderly patients who cannot drive waiting in the freezing cold in bus shelters for a once-an-hour service that is far from reliable? Will this improve their health, or would we prefer them to shell out for a return taxi that will cost about £20, or are we to rely on a commitment to home visits that will surely put considerably more strain on the workforce?”

Ruth Cater, practice manager at Staffa Health, said: “Providing excellent patient care is our priority and we are reluctantly proposing the closure of our Pilsley branch surgery after very careful consideration of all our options to make the best use of all our available professional staff and resources.

“We gave local people the opportunity to talk to us about this proposal during a 60-day consultation and we’re always happy to speak to our patients about their care and our services.

“If the surgery does close we will be implementing a number of suggestions patients gave us in the consultation for example improved capacity at other sites, online and telephone consultations to save patients from travelling and proactive support for our more frail and elderly patients.

“There would be no reduction in clinical staffing and we’ll take every effort to make sure we can continue to provide all our patients with high quality, accessible services.”